‘Don’t you know him?’ said the archduke, laughing—‘it’s Colonel de Tiernay; and if he cannot stand up, you certainly should be the last to find fault with him. Pray sit quiet, Tiernay,’ added he, pressing me down on my seat; ‘and if you won’t look so terrified, my sister will remember you.’
‘We must both be more altered than I ever expect if I cease to remember Monsieur de Tiernay,’ said the archduchess, with a most courteous smile. Then leaning on the back of a chair, she bent forward and inquired after my health. There was something so strange in the situation: a young, handsome girl condescending to a tone of freedom and intimacy with one she had seen but a couple of times, and from whom the difference of condition separated her by a gulf wide as the great ocean, that I felt a nervous tremor I could not account for. Perhaps, with the tact that royalty possesses as its own prerogative, or, perhaps, with mere womanly intuition, she saw how the interview agitated me, and, to change the topic, she suddenly said—
‘I must present you to one of my ladies, Colonel de Tiernay, a countrywoman of your own. She already has heard from me the story of your noble devotion, and now only has to learn your name. Remember you are to sit still.’
As she said this, she turned, and drawing her arm within that of a young lady behind her, led her forward.
‘It is to this gentleman I owe my life, Mademoiselle d’Estelles.’
I heard no more, nor did she either; for, faltering, she uttered a low, faint sigh, and fell into the arms of those behind her.
‘What’s this, Tiernay!—how is all this?’ whispered Prince Louis; ‘are you acquainted with mademoiselle?’
But I forgot everything—the presence in which I stood, the agony of a wounded leg, and all, and with a violent effort sprang from my seat.
Before I could approach her, however, she had risen from the chair, and, in a voice broken and interrupted, said—
‘You are so changed, Monsieur de Tiernay—so much changed—that the shock overpowered me. We became acquainted in the Tyrol, madame,’ said she to the princess, ‘where monsieur was a prisoner.’